Lit In a movie novelization, what qualifies as "not aligning with what's seen on screen"?

Inspired by a debate in the TFA forum over what lines of dialogue in the TFA novelization are canon, and what aren't.

My opinion, is that the Story Group definition, is that different dialogue for the same scene, is non-canon.

So - extra words in a speech, extra lines in a conversation, etc.

Good examples:

When Rey bargains Plutt up from 60 portions to 100 portions for BB-8 - whereas she isn't seen doing in the movie, and Plutt is not seen adding extra portions to the 60 portion pile.

Or when Hux's speech about the Starkiller has more words.

Or when Leia talks with Han about Snoke pulling Ben to the dark side, in more detail.


By contrast "extra scenes" like with Poe Dameron on Jakku, or Leia at the very start, don't have this "non-alignment" problem, so are fine.


Is this likely to be correct?

 

That's my assumption as well, but I think this whole "not aligning with what's seen on screen" thing was made deliberately vague.

 

There's a difference between contradiction and omission. Can the extra scenes and details from the novel logically coexist with what's been presented in the movie?

In the novel, Unkar follows Rey, Han and Finn to Takodana, a fight ensues at Maz's castle and Chewie rips Unkar's arm off. In the movie, Chewie stays behind with the Falcon and doesn't even get to the castle. So what we saw in the movie can't logically align with Unkar losing his arm like in the novel. That's a contradiction and therefore not canon.

In the novel, Rey and Poe introduce themselves to each other. If next time he's mentioned Rey goes "who's Poe?", then obviously that scene didn't actually happen. If they act familiar with each other when they meet in person, then I don't see why we can't presume the scene from the novelization happened off screen.

What Leia tells Han about Snoke and Ben is simply a more detailed explanation of what she said in the movie. The former doesn't go against the latter. On the contrary, it's a logical expansion of the movie dialogue. Classic case of omission as opposed to contradiction, in my opinion. So canon.

That's how I see it.

 

I think of it the other way round - it's possible for Chewie to follow them, and the fight to occur "offscreen" even if it's a bit weird to have that much occur offscreen.

Wookieepedia at least seems to be going with "that fight happened"

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Unkar_Plutt

Same, for that matter, with the novel scenes of Poe on Jakku, making his way out of the desert.

Whereas, Leia has a short conversation onscreen - adding extra lines to an onscreen conversation is a bit questionable.